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Lobby card for the film “Hitler’s Madman” (1943)

Object | Accession Number: 2018.590.101

Lobby card for the American feature film, “Hitler’s Madman,” released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in June 1943. Lobby cards are promotional materials placed in theater lobby windows to highlight specific movie scenes, rather than the broader themes often depicted on posters. “Hitler’s Madman” is a fictionalized portrayal of the assassination and of Reinhard Heydrich and its aftermath. Heydrich was Heinrich Himmler’s second-in-command and chief of the Reich Security Main office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt, RSHA), which was the major implementer of the systematic murder of European Jews. He was especially brutal, earning the nicknames “The Hangman of Europe” and “Hitler’s Hangman.” Under Heydrich’s leadership, over 34,000 Jews were deported from Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp in German-occupied Czechoslovakia. On May 27, 1942, two British-trained Czech agents rolled a hand grenade under Heydrich’s vehicle. Splinters from the resulting explosion led to an infection that killed him. On June 10, 1942, in retaliation for Heydrich’s death, the Nazis targeted the village of Lidice in Czechoslovakia. 192 men and boys were executed by firing squad, and 203 women were deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp, 60 of whom died in the camp system. Additionally, 82 children were likely deported to Chelmno and killed in mobile gas chambers. The Germans then destroyed the buildings and razed the town. This object is one of more than 1,200 objects in the Cinema Judaica Collection of materials related to films about World War II and the Holocaust as well as Jewish, Israeli, and biblical themes.

Date
Cinematic Release:  1943 June 10
Geography
creation: United States
distribution: United States
Language
English
Classification
Posters
Object Type
Lobby Cards (lcsh)
Genre/Form
Display cards.
Credit Line
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Ken Sutak and Sherri Venokur
 
Record last modified: 2023-05-24 12:28:19
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn692916